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My Blog and I

My name is Diana. I am the blogger behind Offbeat Vagabond. I just
wanted something to help me rant on about things I love or don't quite
love. I am big on books, especially Urban
Fantasy, it is my favorite genre. Any Romance has to be Paranormal,
because love isn't natural without a gun and a beast involved. Although my tastes are very much expanding, I have discovered a love for Contemporary even BDSM (shocking!) I love
movies. Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror/Action, pretty much anything as long as no
Romantic Comedies are involved (Katherine Heigl, you have been warned).
Music, TV, Wrestling are all my things as well (although I haven't been watching Wrestling as much as I used to). I am doing this for fun. I want to
write on a professional front, so blogging is a good stepping stone for
me. I just hope that stone doesn't have moss and I slip and break
something. So join me in my little piece of the Internet and remember,
it is normal to be abnormal

How hard do you have to shake a family tree to find out the truth of the past?

Fifteen-year-old
Rae Kerrigan has never questioned her family’s history. That is until
she accepted a scholarship to Guilder Boarding School in England.
Guilder is a very unique, gifted school.

Rae has no idea what
she is getting herself into or that her family’s past is going to come
back and taunt her. She learns she is part of an unparalleled group of
individuals who become marked with a unique tattoo (tatù) on their
sixteenth birthday. The tatù enables them to have supernatural powers
particular to the shape of their marking.

Both her parents were
marked though Rae never knew, as they passed away when she was young
and never told her. Learning about her family’s past, her evil father
and sacrificial mother, Rae needs to decide if there is a ray of hope
for her own life.

*********************************************

Rae of Hope follows a young
girl named Rae. She has had a difficult time growing up. She lost
both of her parents at the age of six in a terrible fire. She has
been raised by her aunt and uncle ever since. She is now fifteen and
will be sixteen in a few months. She is now, out of nowhere, being
sent to a school called Guilder Boarding School. She can't find any
information about the school. But things aren't much better when she
gets to Guilder as she quickly finds out it isn't your typical
school. Everyone has powers, but those powers don't come out until
they hit sixteen. When they turn sixteen, a tattoo (tatu) appears on
their bodies that represents their powers. But that isn't the
strangest thing Rae must face. Everyone at the school knew who she
was even before she turned up. They are frightened of her and she
doesn't know why. Rae now has to face her parent's past and that past
may ruin her.

What a read this was. I really enjoyed
this book a lot. The characters were quite a bit of fun after a
while. I really liked Rae, but after her first interaction with a
boy, she pretty much lost her brain. After she meets her bubbly and
talkative roommate Molly, she goes outside with her and runs into a
hot guy named Devon. But before she says anything to him, an accident
happens where Rae could have almost lost her life. But after it
passes, she doesn't act like a normal person would. She doesn't find
the guys that caused it and scream at them and she isn't really
shocked after it happens. Hell, she didn't move out of the way when
the incident was taking place. I wanted to slap her at that moment.
It made no sense. But she does redeem herself later. She is spunky
and has a lot of fight. But come on, please don't start acting like a
Disney princess.

I was a huge fan of Devon's. You do
get suspicious of him given some of the things he knows, but he was
the perfect guy and I loved that he wasn't afraid of Rae. He has a
tatu of a Fennec fox, so he has As a matter of fact, she got a lot
of attention from the guys in this book. Her attitude towards them
didn't make sense to me sometimes. For instance we had Andy who I
liked, but she would constantly have some mean thoughts about him. It
didn't make sense to me. I know you like Devon (even though he is
already taken), but why did she have such a dislike towards him?
There was also Riley who I was very suspicious about in the book. He
definitely had an agenda, you just don't know what. But my favorite
character was Molly. I thought at first she would have been a very
superficial character (well, she has her moments). But she brought a
lot of energy to the book which makes sense given what her superpower
was. She has the ability to create electricity. It suited her, it
really did. I love the friendship between her and Rae.

We also have the school's dean, Dean
Carter. The guy was just vile. He obviously can't stand women, The
school was only open to boys, but ever since Rae's birth, they opened
it to girls (because of who her parents were). He continues to
mistreat and embarrass her in the book. He was definitely scary. But
thank God for Headmaster Lanford who I honestly kept imagining looked
like Dumbledore. It couldn't be helped. This book does share quite a
few similarities to Harry Potter which
made me enjoy this book even more. But trust me, this book stands on
its own and is quite unique.

I
love the mysteries we uncover in this book. Rae's powers are amazing.
They are unique and supercool. I won't tell you what they are though.
We also learn what actually happened to Rae's parents. I loved this
scene. I won't lie, I became a little teary eyed. I love trying to
uncover Rae's power and what she intends to do with it. I don't want
to give anything away because this could easily be spoiled, but man
the twists in this are epic. I loved the ending and what more we
discover about Rae's superpowers. I would be jealous.

I
highly recommend this read to YA and UF fans. I love the romance,
well the lust really. But there were some good choices for Rae. As I
mentioned Andy and there is also Julian. He has the ability to draw
the future. I pray we got more of him in book 2 (which I have
already). He too was perfect. I want more of him, I really really do.
I love this story of trying to avoid your family's past. That no
matter what they did, it doesn't mean you will be like them or that
you plan to do what they did. I really liked the idea of the tattoos
that show up and show their powers (but why do girls get the tramp
stamp?) I wish I could say more about this book. I am so happy I
joined this blog tour. This little gem would passed right under my
nose. Put this on your wishlist today.

Wanita May grew up in the fruit
belt of Ontario - St.Catharines. Crazy-happy childhood, she always has
had a vivid imagination and loads of energy.

The youngest of
six -- four older brothers, and a sister -- taught her at a young age
to be competitive in all aspects of life.

At sixteen, she
began competing in athletics (track and field) and before she turned
seventeen, she was representing Canada in high jump. She continued to
compete, breaking Canada's JR High Jump record (1.92m - 6' 3 1/2" for
those metric-ly challenged). She attented University of Toronto, and
Kansas State University - winning CIAU's and becoming All-American 6x -
NCAA Indoors Runner Up + more.

But you're not interested in her
athletic career - unless of course you're curious to know she stands
1.70m (5'7") and has jumped 20cm over her head on more than one
occassion. She's represented Canada at the World Championships, World
Jrs., won Francophone Games, and loved every minute of every
competition. From the grueling workouts, the crazy weights she lifted
on her back, the days she thought her lungs were going to spit out of
her mouth for lack of oxygen, the travelling around the world and the
opportunity to read - her favourite past time.

Life continued
with her husband (a distance runner from Liverpool, UK, who she met at
KSU) and then their first, then second and finally third child. Their
house became full of more imagination and stories.

Wanita and
her husband run an online business, dealing in antiques and
collectables - particularly jewelry and porcelain (one of the business'
website: www.wadeincanada.com ).

After her father passed away in 2009, from a six-year battle with
cancer (which she still believes he won the fight against), she began to
write again. A passion she'd loved for years, but realized life was
too short to keep putting it off.

Her first book, Rae of Hope - from the Chronicles of Kerrigan - will be available October 2011 by kNight Romance Publishing.

She is currently represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary
Agency. Wanita is a writer of Young Adult, Fantasy Fiction and where
ever else her little muses take her.

Due to the daily spam comments I have been getting lately and to avoid the annoying word verification, Anonymous comments are no more. I do not want bargains on bags, watches, jerseys, boots and other crap. Geez, they could at least spam me with book and movie stuff, I would be somewhat interested LOL! Thank you :D